


No Strings Attached

by unorthodoxCreativity



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Birthday, M/M, Oral Sex, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unorthodoxCreativity/pseuds/unorthodoxCreativity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave doesn't like birthdays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Strings Attached

**Author's Note:**

> I run under the headcanon that fics where the game set everyone back in their world again like everything was normal are actually in dreambubbles but unaware of it.
> 
> That really has nothing to do with this fic but it's worth mentioning, I guess.

It’s your eighteenth birthday.

Somehow, you feel like you ought to give more of a shit about this than you do.

Legal to smoke, legal to play the lotto, legal to rent porn and watch strippers and die for a country you couldn’t care less about.

You’ve already died twenty times over in the game. None of this shit means anything to you. You already bum cigarettes off Bro every now and again, when the post-traumatic stress pulls too rough around the edges of your skin. The lotto completely disinterests you after the hoards of useless cash you made on Croc Wall Street. Porn’s another commodity you already have more than enough of via redtube and 4chan, and watching a stripper would do nothing but remind you of your sad, single existence and how you haven’t managed to get a girl on a date since middle school.

Something about the set of your shoulders, the aggressive defense in your stride. You scare people who don’t know what you’ve been through. The game turned you into a suspicious, paranoid killer. The instincts still manage to snarl their way from your gnarled stump of a soul every once in a while, and you know you need some kind of therapy, probably deserve a nice long stay in a mental ward, but the freedom of this universe is the only thing keeping you sane most days, and being trapped in your own thoughts, behind padded walls or the nodding, condescending eyes of a counselor is not something you relish.

Sitting in the darkness of your room, you ignore the traitorous twelve sitting prettily in the corner of your laptop’s screen, telling you of the new day – and your birthday, if you can call it that. There wasn’t a vagina you forced your way out of, just a large flaming destructive ball of space matter, which is fitting, in a way, that you’d make such an entrance to begin your miserable life.

You’d continue ignoring your birthday quite successfully if not for the fact that some dunkass by the name of Egbert decided to pester you.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] started pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

EB: happy birthday to you!  
EB: happy birthday to you!  
EB: happy biiiiirthday dear daaaaave!  
EB: happy birthday to youuu!  
EB: :B   
TG: goddammit egbert its not even been a minute  
EB: that’s not true, it’s 12:01 now!  
TG: so what you just sat by your computer waiting until the clock struck twelve and i turned into a legal pumpkin and the glass slipper of my youth shattered daintily upon those goddamn stairs ive tried so hard to avoid  
TG: your fingers twitching with glee as your mouse hovered over my name on pesterchum  
TG: i bet youve been planning for the entire week to make sure you were the first person to tell me happy birthday arent you  
EB: hehehe, you got me dave!  
EB: but aren’t you glad it was me?  
TG: yeah yeah whatever you big homo tool  
EB: anyway i gotta head to bed now but have a great day!  
TG: the fuck its like ten there isnt it  
EB: yeah but it’s a school night, duh!  
EB: byyyeeee!  
EB: <3

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] has ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] –

Sometimes, you honestly don’t understand your best friend. He still goes to bed at ten as if he’s perpetually in middle school. You suppose part of it may be the fact you’re all so tired now, after playing; no amount of sleep seems to leave you rested. Your own solution to this problem is to fuck sleep and get by on two hours sprinkled here and there, which is probably fucking your health something awful but it’s not as if you can sleep without nightmares anyway.

You go back to clicking around at GarageBand aimlessly, fiddling a track up a few pitches before taking it right back down again. You’ve hit a wall with this jam in particular, mostly because your motivation has been shot recently. Senioritis has chowed down on your entire being. School is so utterly pointless you don’t know why you go anymore, except for the shiny diploma you’ll get in a couple months. You wish sometimes, just a little, that you could still warp time and make the year end a little sooner, but all the caveats and minutiae that go with that power make your head spin uncomfortably.

There’s a creak by your door, and you barely flinch as Lil Cal is shoved directly into your face. He’s wearing a birthday hat, how cute. It’s bright red with a little tassel of gold at the top, fitted snugly right over Cal’s usual backward cap.

You fistbump his little mitten half-heartedly and go back to clicking.

“Kid.” Bro pokes you with Cal as his proxy. When you ignore him, he pokes again. “Dave.”

You sigh. “What.”

Taking Cal’s hands with his thumbs, he forces your mouth into a wide grin that hurts your cheeks.

“Happy motherfucking birthday. Smile, dammit.”

Shrugging him off, you turn back to your computer and immediately frown to be contrary. You ignore Bro, or you would, if he didn’t take hold of your swivel chair and spin you to face him.

“Get your fat ass out of the chair. We’re going out.”

“Fuck you,” you say, but get up anyway. You’re too bored and tired to fight with him right now, and to be completely honest you’re a little curious what he’s got up his sleeve. Generally he just throws shit at you for your birthday, both literally and figuratively; last year he didn’t even buy you anything, just pelted you with about fifty red M&Ms while you were trying to sleep. Asshole.

It’s pouring rain outside, so you pull on your raincoat, black and heavy like the storm clouds rollicking above the city. Your wardrobe has disintegrated to a drab wash of greys and blacks, monochrome and monotone like the one-word answers you give to people who ask you if you’re alright. You don’t wear red anymore, not after your vision started being assailed by too much red every night in your nightmares. The color is too synonymous with fallen friends to be comforting anymore.

Bro has an unsightly orange umbrella that he pulls you under, pressed against his side like tar. The orange flares up in the dreary drizzle like an inextinguishable flame, kind of like its owner; the game spit him back out and he seemed almost no worse for wear, except for the few occasions you’ve caught him sitting with his shades in his lap, pinching the brow of his nose with a sigh trapped between his lips.

The sidewalk is writhing with worms, making their way skyward to avoid a cruel fate of drowning underground. You’re too tired to avoid them, and they squelch beneath your shoe every time you meet one. You find yourself wondering how many worms will survive this storm, with the slow but steady trickle of pedestrians, and the continued downpour. You’ve committed practically a genocide yourself at this point, the sweat and blood of fallen soldiers a slick coating on your sole. You’d feel uncomfortable, walking on the death of hundreds like this, if you hadn’t already walked a thousand miles in bloody sneakers.

He takes you blocks away, to a dingy entry alcove flickering with dying neon lights. A scantily clad lady high-kicks in one of them, while the other invites customers to Come On In, Sailor. Your feet drag, heels digging into the pavement like a donkey set on staying put.

“What?” Bro asks, and you just shake your head. “C’mon, it’s your birthday. Got us the nice table right up front.”

“No.”

He sighs, pulls you into the entryway, and shakes off the umbrella. “Will you at least go in? They’ve got food and shit, I’ll treat you to dinner.”

“It’s midnight,” you point out irritably, hunching your shoulders so your coat warms your ears a little better. You feel like a lone wolf, pelted sideways by icy precipitation as he stands in a clearing of barren trees.

“And I know for a fact you didn’t eat anything earlier.” He grabs your hand and pulls you into the strip club, and you don’t have the heart in you to continue arguing.

The inside of the club looks hardly better than the outside, but the carpet is clean and the soft lights cast a golden-red glow that pools in the corners of the room like ambrosia. Bro, true to his word, pulls you all the way up to the table closest to the low curving stage. Thankful for the padded booth to sit in instead of chairs, you lean into the cushions and drum your fingernails on the circular table absentmindedly, ignoring the spectacle on the pole right in front of you in favor of casting sideways glances toward your brother.

He acts just as spry as he always has, but you can see the signs of age speckling him: wisps of silver hair smoothing back from his temples, a small but prominent line at the corner of his mouth from his frequent smirking, the claw of crow’s feet next to his eye. His expression is vacant of emotion but intellectually piercing, impatience at the waitress’ late arrival in the bounce of his left foot. You bump his shoe with your own gently, and he stills.

The waitress is a blonde, huge-chested, wearing a shirt two sizes too small. You’re thankful for the protection your shades give you, just in case one of the buttons decides to pop. She asks for your order and you mumble something to Bro, who orders for you both. She giggles and sashays away. You don’t watch her leave.

“What’s with the sourpuss, darlin’?” Bro asks in your direction. His foot has started bouncing again.

“Aside from it being midnight and I didn’t want to go out?” You try to inject your tone with more frustration, but it falls flat.

He leans in, cups your chin in his hand. “Here, I got an idea.” There’s a sultry sincerity in his voice you’re not used to, and it makes your skin prickle. He stands, shoves his hands in his pockets, thumbs out. “Follow me in like five minutes. ‘Kay?”

“Yeah, whatever,” you manage, pulse thudding in your sinuses. He drifts his way to the restrooms and your eyes never leave his back, lingering even as the door shuts behind him.

Each second ticks away in your brain, perfect, even, accurate, holdover from powers you once had. The minutes slide slow, unbearably so, pulsing bass of the DJ’s track discordant with the pulsing in your arteries. It’s the longest five minutes you’ve felt in a long time, warping time around your anticipation like a cocoon, growing and changing until you can’t bear it, 4:53, 4:54, and the door of the bathroom clicks behind you softly on the beat of 5.

He’s leaned against the marble of the bathroom counter, cigarette perched between apathetic lips. When he sees you, he flicks it away to smolder uselessly in the corner, turning the tile around it a burnt yellow.

“Stall or counter?” His weight shifts, and you can’t help staring at the fluid curve of his hip.

“That all depends on what the fuck you’re planning,” you bite back.

He reclines his head, a subtle solicitation to come nearer. You take a few careful steps forward, remaining cautious, just in case this turns out to be a fluke and you’re interpreting this all completely wrong.

The denim of his jeans scratches against the tile grout as he kneels in front of you, hands to your belt with an ease that belies the hard bobbing of his adam’s apple. You find yourself backing up against the sink counter, hands immediately clutching for a feeble foundation as Bro deftly unzips you and lets your pants fall to the floor around your ankles.

He’s an expert at this, you know. He’s only ever let you into this fantasy once, of him subservient to you instead of the reverse, of something beautiful in your relationship instead of something horribly broken. It was after you’d been back in this mundane world again for a week, after the shock had worn off and the fear that it would happen again nearly swallowed the both of you whole. His attentions then were desperate, so vulnerable and so expressive of all the love he didn’t know how to put to words, and afterward, neither of you mentioned it again.

As obscene as it is, this repeat of an emotional offense years ago is something that means a lot to you, and you can’t help the small gasp that melts into the heated air as Bro puts his mouth on you, gently.

The collision of endorphins and ecstasy a couple minutes later mingle and then run out of you like egg yolk, and you sigh, sagging, the sunny possibility of life pooling at your thigh where Bro continues to kiss your skin. You both feel the heaviness that could pull you under if either of you said anything, now, so you remain silent, communication only in the soft thrumming between skin, and the whispery prayers of your combined breathing, in and out.

It’s a mute procession back to the booth, denim sliding against vinyl as you scoot your way back to the corner. Your food is already here, steaming toward the low ceiling. Bro follows, sits a comfortable distance from you, closer than he was before. His foot bounces against your ankle now, continues the contact you gained in the bathroom. A frission skitters up your leg, and you cover your reaction with a spoonful of coleslaw.

The food, at least, is good. The dancers are off the beat of the music they gyrate to, and it’s giving you a headache. You’ve never had training and you could still dance better than these sequined bimbos.

As if sensing this train wreck of a thought process, Bro snorts a laugh at you, throws an insult. “They ought to have bigger costumes, ‘cause change is about all they’re worth, and that skimpy little string ain’t holding shit.”

Cracking a grin, you nudge into his side with a rough shoulder. “Stop.”

He goes to stand, continuing. “I could out-dance these girls any day. Watch me.”

Before you can stop him, he peels off his polo, showing abs and a spattering of freckles. Mortified, you cover your face with your hands, peeking around the fingers.

Almost too expertly to be impromptu, his body rolls, finds the current of the music and lets it carry him, snapping forward with every low thud of the bass. He flings his hat off onto the stage and runs gloved fingers through his sweat-spiked hair, sending dancers scattering away on uneasy, stiletto footsteps. The waitresses gawk and with good reason; he’s good, amazing even, drawing attention from other tables, causing a scene but there’s no drunken exclamations or danger to the property, no real reason to call in security to stop him.

You decide to hell with it, everyone else is staring too, and your eyes rake across his skin, down the thin white scar tracing his sternum, and imagine finding fingers and tongue in those taut crevices between muscles instead. He meets your eyes, dons a breathless smile, and touches himself for you, hands flicked down, palms rough. You’ve swallowed your tongue at this point, don’t dare to say anything because you know it would just come out as a squawk, and Bro is getting more sexual now, past the point of innocent exhibitionism and into the realm of live porn.

A brave waitress finally stomps over, slams a palm flat against your table, and coughs out a warning. Bro slows and then stops, shrugging, and sits, no argument, no harm done.

He’s breathing hard, slicked in a layer of cold sweat. He leans against you, getting your shirt damp, but right now, you give absolutely zero fucks. Between puffs he smiles into the curve of your ear and whispers, “Happy birthday.”

“You’re a crazy asshole, you know that?” you mutter back, but you can’t keep the amusement from your voice, and he knows how much you enjoyed this, the egotistical bastard. He nuzzles you, affectionate in his exhaustion.

He pays for your food and you’re on your way, retracing steps to an apartment still messy and a day still kind of shitty, but actually, this year’s birthday feels pretty okay.

You crawl into bed, and for the first time in years, you fall asleep as your head hits the pillow.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [No Worse for the Wear](https://archiveofourown.org/works/722060) by [tortoisegirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoisegirl/pseuds/tortoisegirl)




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